UK builder eyeing investment in Japanese robotics
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Laing O’Rourke is reported to be considering using Japanese robotic technology to launch the UK’s first home factory.
The firm’s confidence in the demand for such a product was given a boost last month when England’s Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) said Laing O’Rourke had won a place on all three of its regional framework deals, which will see 1,350 new homes built.
A source close to the firm’s talks with the HCA told the UK’s Building magazine that plans for robotic systems, allied to the fact Laing O’Rourke already had an off-site plant in Nottinghamshire, had boosted its case with the HCA, which wants to reduce build costs through off-site manufacture.
He said he was confident there would be enough orders in the next year through the HCA framework to justify the investment in the multimillion-pound technology.
Steve Carr, head of new business and economics at the HCA, added: “We’ve been talking to Laing O’Rourke about using system-build housing and the research it’s been doing worldwide.”
Building reported that Ray O’Rourke, the firm’s chair, was impressed by the output of a plant run by Sekisui Heim (factory pictured here) when he visited Japan in 2006. This employs about 450 people, generates sales of 30bn yen (£2.1bn), and is the system he wants to bring to the UK.
It is based on a timber and steel-frame system that produces actual rooms, rather than flat-pack kits, and is a more highly automated production method than any presently in production. It is only used on a tiny scale in the UK.
SOURCE: iCON - the international magazine of the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB). Visit www.iconreview.org
